21 Responses

I seem to remember that the last toll increase was at least partially due to losses in revenue. The loss caused by a reduction in the volume of traffic using the thruway.

I can envision the day when the last car using the thruway is going through a toolbooth and the driver is presented a bill for several million dollars. The toll taker tells the driver “we have to pay for road repair and improvement with tolls we collect, and you are the only user of the thruway”.

Alexander Hamilton – You might want to take a couple of minutes to investigate (like that will ever happen) what Jimmy carter did during his administration to encourage alternate energy development on the industrial and personal level. You might also want to take a look at what Ronald Reagan did to all those programs and incentives, the second he assumed power. Reagan ended all programs, cut all tax incentives and defunded all the programs, that in thirty+ years could have put us solidly on the road to clean energy independence on foreign oil. Sounds like you are blaming the wrong people …….again.

gunga dan – I’m sure that if you had any inclination to learn the truth about what Jimmy Carter did to encourage alternate energy development, you would take the couple of minutes it would take to search out the information yourself, rather than force me to take the considerable time to lay it all out for you, only to have you dismiss it with one of your usual one line nonsense retorts.
Debating with you is like playing chess with a pigeon, you knock over all the pieces, crap on the board and then fly home to your flock to declare victory. I’d rather drink light beer, and I hate light beer.

iknowtruthismine: This is going to shock you, but I agree that the worst president of all time was correct on pushing some conservation. At the same time, congress, both democrat and republican a like, were in the car industries pockets.

But that is just the demand side is 100 percent all on libtards, you liberals will never attack the supply side problem. Even Carter recognized this when pushing oil shale and the dem congress blocked it.

Again, you are being the extremist leftist here. I want everything on the table (conservation, alt energy, energy exploration), you just want one thing, expensive alternative energy solutions. It isn’t feasible and anyone who studies energy solutions knows it.

“…you would take the couple of minutes it would take to search out the information yourself, rather than force me to take the considerable time to lay it all out for you, only to have you dismiss it with one of your usual one line nonsense retorts.”

So, are you saying you are incapable of doing basic research, or are you saying that I am much better at it? In any case, you are a master debater in your own mind; you throw all kinds of assertions out and fail to back them up with facts.

Only if you’ve forgotten the misery of gas lines can you possibly agree with Richard Cohen’s July 8 op-ed blaming President Reagan for the current crisis. President Carter believed that government- mandated conservation and rationing would lead to a fair distribution of petroleum products with least harm to the environment. President Reagan believed that we needed to grow, not shrink, and if we allowed a free market, we would produce more energy at a lower cost and without harm to the environment.

Each had a chance as president. Under President Carter there were shortages, gas lines, black marketing and stagflation. President Reagan ended gas lines, lowered the price of oil, and revived the economy.

According to Cohen, Reagan’s policy only worked for a while, but 25 years later, supplies have not kept up with demand and the price has accordingly gone way up. Whose fault is that? Is it not Carter-type government restrictions and prescriptions on energy development? If we had been allowed to follow Reagan’s policy of allowing a free people to decide, without government interference, whatever combination of coal, petroleum, nuclear, ethanol, wind, and solar energy and conservation they wanted to buy and invest in, we wouldn’t be in the fix we are in now.

Alexander Hamilton – Bush is the worst president EVER, so don’t try to pass the lie about Carter, it won’t wash. I believe you will find that Harding, Nixon, Grant and Buchanan are rated lower than Carter and W. Bush is the sludge at the bottom of the barrel. As to rushing to suck out and burn up the last of the oil as fast as we can just to move our sorry butts around, is a colossal waste of a resource that has so many other more important uses.

We might as well concentrate on alternate energy development rather than expand our use of a resource that is soon to disappear anyway. All those new refineries being screamed for are going to look pretty stupid when the oil runs out, and coal is just stupid because there is no clean way to burn it. Unless you know some magic way to safely store nuclear waste for a quarter million years or so, you might as well rule that out. As the world’s major spewer of carbon into the atmosphere, we have an obligation to lead the rest of the world away from doing the same before we all end up killing the planet with our waste.

We have so much energy waiting to be tapped that could be turned into electricity ( wave action, ocean currents, wind, tidal forces, solar ) that could be used to charge our vehicles, expand rail travel, end routine air travel (huge waste of fuel). Solar energy can be used to extract hydrogen from water, buildings can, and must, be built to be energy efficient and passive collectors of energy. Solar collectors must be mandated on all new sun exposed buildings and the world population must be reduced so we can come into balance with a sustainable world environment. Now, if you dismiss all this as left-wing posturing, then there is no help for you and damn little help for the planet.

#10 Alexander Hamilton- I have to agree with #12 (iknowtruthismine), George W is the worst president in history. Think back, when he first got into office our gas prices were $1.49 a gallon. Look where we are now.

#11Gunga Dan….”If we had been allowed to follow Reagan’s policy…” If I recall, George HW Bush followed Reagan into the White House. Then came Bill Clinton who gave us a decent economy, eliminated our nation’s deficit and actually gave us a SURPLUS. Along came GW Bush who quickly took care of the surplus. So here we are today with over $4.00 a gallon gasoline and have a huge deficit. Again, we are currently under the WORST President in History. Hurry up November 4th!

iknowtruthismine, Carter is the worst modern president in our history, deal with it. The guy was a complete and total failure on every level. History is going to look kindly on Bush on many things and unkindly on others, but he is no where near the loser Carter was/is.

We might as well concentrate on both seeing your assumptions about peak oil and coal are completely unfounded. There is also clean coal plants which makes it much cleaner. Oh, and CO2 isn’t a pollutant, it does not warm the earth and humans are incapable of killing the planet. That is completely absurd. The Planet is bigger than us. It is the height of arrogance to think we can change climate.

We have a ton of energy waiting to be tapped, unfortunately, its going to take a long time and it really expensive. We need to build a bridge to it and use our resources in the ground right now. This will also create jobs, boost supply, increase the dollar, etc…

You want all or nothing, you liberals never compromise on anything which is why you are terrible at governing.

#14, How many times did bush try to increase oil supplies via ANWR and oil shale? Who blocked it every single time. The Democrats in the Senate from 2001-2002. The Democrats in the Senate filibustering it from 2003-2006. The democrats won’t drill now.

#15, “you liberals never compromise on anything which is why you are terrible at governing.”

And, of course, that doesn’t at all describe the conservatives who controlled the White House and both halves of Congress for several years, who would kill any bill from a Democrat merely because it came from a Democrat, who excluded all Democrat input on important issues facing the country, and at whose feet can be placed total responsibility for the economic disaster we’re in now.

Alexander, the only thing that keeps your hypocrisy and foolishness from being entertaining is the knowledge that you actually believe your BS.

Alexander Hamilton – I could not have done a better job of totally destroying your credibility than you just did with the two posts above. How stupid do you think the American public can be , that they would buy the colossal pile of bilge you just excreted? I think that it is time that mindless posters, who tout the myths and lies fed to them by an economic system that has a vested interest in sucking out as much profit as possible from the Earth, with no regard to long term costs involved with rampant pollution and the expending of finite resources, in-order to line their pockets, get what they truly deserve, to be totally ignored for being absolutely inane, dangerously clueless, 90% vacuous and 100% wrong.

gunga dan – Do you ever offer anything meaningful to discussions, or do you just repeat what others have said and then make a mindless comment to dismiss what they said. I would be very curious to see you offer something of substance instead of your ignorant retorts, but I suspect that you be asking too much of someone who seems to let Rush Limbaugh do all his thinking for him.